Retrial set for May in 2004 West Palm murder case

A retrial is expected to begin in late May in the case of a man accused of murdering a young woman who lived in his trailer part in a 2004 case where the victim’s body was never found.

Mark Barrow, now 55, was convicted in 2007 of the murder three years earlier of Rae Meichelle Tener. Prosecutors believe Barrow dumped the 36-year-old’s body in a canal.

An appellate court in 2010 overturned Barrow’s conviction and Florida’s Supreme Court upheld that decision two years later. Both higher courts ruled that former Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga – now a Florida Supreme Court Justice himself – was wrong to refuse the jury’s request to have parts of the trial testimony read back to them during their deliberations.

A retrial in the case was scheduled to begin this week, but according to court records, Circuit Judge Krista Marx set a new trial date for May 23.

Barrow and Ternier lived in the same trailer park on Drexel Road. At his first trial, a former girlfriend testified that he’d made a drunken confession to her implicating himself in Tener’s death. Prosecutors also said drops of Tener’s blood were found in Barrow’s van.

Barrow, through his attorney Fred Susaneck, has said he is wrongly imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit.